Out of the mouths of babes: Here's someone who REALLY "gets it".

[bperci108]

A friend's plight spurs 5-year-old to start her own produce-growing business

By SARAH JIO
SPECIAL TO THE P-I

Akemi Takahashi, 5, loves to show people her garden.

"These are the squash, that's the lettuce, and those are the baby carrots over there," she said, pointing her small hand in the direction of a row of frazzled-looking greens sprouting up out of the soil. She smiled as if she was about ready to divulge a big secret. "Sometimes I dig them up a little to look at them."

Akemi Takahashi, 5, works in her Bellevue garden. "I wanted to help people like Calista," she said.
Many children plant gardens with the help of their parents, but Akemi's vegetable plot is more than a passing agriculture lesson.

"I had a really poor neighbor across the street, and she wasn't taken care of very good," she explained. "Every week they had to go to the food bank. She was really hungry."

Her friend, a 3 1/2-year-old named Calista who was often left unattended, would sometimes wander over to the Takahashi house for dinner, but after Child Protective Services removed Calista from her home last summer, Akemi worried about her young friend and other children like her.

"Some people don't get three meals a day. Sometimes they only get one or two," said Akemi. "I wanted to help people like Calista."

So with $7 she pulled from her piggy bank, Akemi bought some seeds and decided to plant a garden. She would sell her produce, she told her mother, to friends, family and neighbors, and donate all the money to the Seattle-based hunger relief agency Northwest Harvest -- an organization her mother told her about.


Read the rest at: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/286024_akemi22.html?source=mypi


Couldn't you just :cry: ?

[ThomCat]

1. That is such a wonderful thing.

You know her parents must be good people too to allow her and encourage her to do this. They must have been feeding and helping that little girl across the street and they must have been talking to their daughter about it very intelligently and compassionately.

I love hearing about good people.

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. Pretty amazing little girl.

[vickitulsa]

3. I love this sort of story!

More than simply a "feel-good" piece, it strikes to the very heart of any compassionate person. What a joy -- and a relief -- to know that at least SOME young ones are "getting it" way sooner than others are.

I hope a LOT of people get a chance to read this story!

From the mouths of babes, indeed. :)

[panader0]

4. " Gardening is the most noble profession" Zoroaster (Ibelieve)

[undergroundpanther]

5. I did this as a kid

My father would plant a huge garden,we had good soil at the old house,and I added stuff to the garden and when everything got ripe we gave our xtras away. Anyone we thought needed it or wanted it,we just gave it away.Giving stuff away your surplus stuff you don't use is a good thing.When I used to have transport every year I'd clean out clothes stuff that does not fit,canned stuff unused anything.and I would go down town and give it away to the homeless, MYSELF.. I'd go where the homeless hang out and ask them their size what they want, dig out everything in the bag that could fit,if I had it, and give it.I'd just walk around and give out stuff from the big bag.Than go home. Imagine if 100 people did this,the homeless would not need much to be warm or fed,if 1000 did it they would not feel so alone, if every citizen did it there would be no more homeless or poverty stricken people.

Our culture of greed and competitiveness has taught us early on giving is weakness and is bad. Time to turn that lie around.Giving is bad only for those who PROFIT from exploiting fears of and actual scarcity and need.

[Frustratedlady]

6. What a sweet story

Such a sweet little girl. She reminds me of the "Sunbonnet Girls" of old. Akemi will go far in life.

[InternalDialogue]

7. K&R. Get on that greatest page with this rec.

I don't care what political topic currently turns your crank -- hearing about the enduring thread of humanity that exists in the most innocent among us keeps the fire going.

[niyad]

8. thank you for this beautiful story--but how unutterably sad that

a little girl shows more care and concern than the agencies that are supposed to be helping.

and then, of course, there is all the money that is being spent destroying another country, so there is no money for our people here.

[catabryna]

9. I'm having my son help with a similar project...

He is getting ready to turn 6 and he's been picking up dropped coins that he sees outdoors and he is allowed to keep any coin he finds around the house. (I also drop them here and there for him to find now and again). He was adopted from Ukraine back in 2002 and was severely malnourished as he came out of a very poor orphanage. After our host family saw the condition of our son, they decided they wanted to help. Since they have always had a garden in the past they started, about three years ago, taking any extra harvested produce that they could do without to the orphanage for the kids.

Well, since it is not cost efficient to send small amounts of money to Ukraine and customs can be a real pain in the butt when it comes to sending money, this past spring we rounded up all those spare coins and went and bought seeds to mail to our host family. We wondered how well they would grow since the climate and soils are a bit different, but it was worth a shot, and it wasn't an expensive venture if it failed. Well, we just got a letter from them and they are harvesting more produce this year from our seeds than they ever did from the seeds they bought in their own country! They have fresh vegetables coming out of their ears and are making trips three times a week to the orphanage with loads of good, healthy food for those kids!

My son is developmentally delayed due to malnurishment, among other things, but he understands and he sure is excited in knowing that he is helping all those little kids left behind!

[elehhhhna]

10. Couldn't you just ? Yeah. I did. Thank you for that beautiful story.

[WinkyDink]

11. And that child will never be a Republican.

Her heart is too good.

[tblue]

12. A Republican child

would have stolen whatever Calista had in her garden, sold it at a huge profit, and said 'Calista who?' And/or put a firecracker in Calista's pet frog's bottom, and 40 years later get the GOP nomination for president.

[malaise]

13. What a lovely act n/t

[meganmonkey]

14. Plant a Row for the Hungry

http://www.gardenwriters.org/par/

Many communities rely on this type of donation as a supplement to their food banks and other hunger relief organizations. We never have enough fresh, local, nutritious produce to distribute.

Even if it is just a few pounds of extra tomatoes or peppers from your backyard garden, PLEASE think about donating your home-grown veggies to a local hunger relief program, or low-income daycare programs, or AFC homes, or domestic violence shelters, etc...

And if you can, grow extra specifically for this purpose, or if you have a community garden plot see if you can get people together to grow an extra plot specifically for this purpose.

Or talk to the farmers at your local farmers market and see if you can start a volunteer program to collect their leftovers at the end of the day to donate to the aforementioned programs.

Not only is it 'compassionate' and 'feel-good', it is absolutely necessary in this economic climate. No matter where you live - city, wealthy suburb, small town, there are more hungry, strugling people than you may realize. And they need more than USDA surplus shitty cheese and canned ham. They need real, healthy food.

*steps off soapbox*

[Luna_Chick]

15. K & R

Thanks sooooooo much for sharing this. Very sad how too many of the "adults" in charge care less about their fellow man than this little girl. She's a much needed reminder, in a country with a prominent fast food mentality, that we need to seriously reevaluate our priorities.

[JimDandy]

16. Read the WHOLE article. Akemi Takahashi is

simply an angel! O8)

[NJCher]

17. that is the cutest photo

If you look below it, there is a place to enlarge it. What a sweet little gardener. She is a child prodigy of goodness.




Cher

[Straight Shooter]

18. 5 years old and wise far beyond her years.

May she live a long, healthy, and very blessed life, and may all the goodness she sows return to her threefold.

What a darling.

Thanks for sharing.

[I Have A Dream]

19. *She* is the hope of our country. n/t

[NMMNG]

20. The beauty of compassion

Real compassion, not that limited and conditional compassion of the neocons.

[shadowknows69]

21. Maybe there is hope for the future

n/t

[katinmn]

22. and thank her mama for teaching this little girl about caring

:)

[seafan]

23. Thank you for sharing this wonderful story, bperci108.

It is a story like this that gives me renewed hope for all of us.





Akemi Takahashi, 5, works in her Bellevue garden. "I wanted to help people like Calista," she said. (September 22, 2006)

Credit: Mike Kane/P-I




Once the wagon is loaded with fresh vegetables, Akemi is off to peddle her produce to friends, family and neighbors. The money she earns is donated to Northwest Harvest. (September 22, 2006)

Credit: Mike Kane/P-I

snip

But her fledgling operation needed a name, she decided. After some thought, she settled on Akemi's Hungry Kids.

Her mother, Kathy Takahashi, dug up a 10-by-10-foot plot of lawn on the side of their Bellevue home, and Akemi planted cucumbers, radishes, corn, green onions, squash and carrots.

After making business cards and flyers that explained her project, she diligently watered and weeded, and when her garden produced a bumper crop of lettuce and radishes, she washed them, packaged them in Ziploc bags and loaded her red wagon.

With her mother, Akemi knocked on neighbors' doors and explained her project. "I'm selling these vegetables to raise money for hungry kids," she would say, handing out her business card with the title "master gardener" under her name.

As a result, Akemi has now raised $241 for Northwest Harvest.

Kathy Takahashi said it can be difficult to broach subjects like hunger with children.

"The garden is a good way to talk about those sorts of things," she said. "The corn was stolen by crows, and the green onions never had a chance, but there are a lot of lessons the garden has provided."

Akemi likes to talk about those lessons, and the ones she has learned in her church Sunday school class.

"If you can give people food, God is very happy," she said. "Whatever job you do makes him very proud."

She paused before adding, "Except selling drugs."

snip